Grass Blades
by MyLittleBamBam
Summary: "There was a time when Regina could fool herself into believing that she was nothing but an innocent young girl. That her innocence hadn't been besmirched and stripped away by the rough words and hands of her mother. But that time was gone now, as quickly and suddenly as it had come; leaving nothing but a broken girl, who felt so unfairly beyond her years, in its wake.


_There was a time..._

There was a time when Regina could fool herself into believing that she was nothing but an innocent young girl. That her innocence hadn't been besmirched and stripped away by the rough words and hands of her mother. There was a time when the skies above her seemed bluer, blades of grass more vibrant and softer as they grazed the skin of her bare feet as she wandered through the hills far away from her stifling home, from her prison. There was a time when laughter came so easily to her, when it rang through the air boisterous and filled with mirth. There was a time of kisses as gentle and refreshing as drizzle pouring from open clouds; a time when love filled her entire body just as easily as air filled her lungs when she took a breath; a time when she allowed herself to dare to believe she could ever possibly be more than the nothing her mother insisted she was.

But that time was gone now, as quickly and suddenly as it had come; leaving nothing but a broken girl, who felt so unfairly beyond her years, in its wake. Her hope, her light, had left her, deserted her, and it seemed like so long ago now that it had. The earth was harder beneath her knees now, the blades of grass that had once seemed so soft against her now seemed to cut into her skin as she knelt at the grave of the man she'd so foolishly let herself love, and he, even more foolishly, had loved her in return.

"She killed you..." She finally muttered, voice so soft that it could have been drowned out by a gust of wind. She let her hand drift forward, softly tracing the name on the gravestone with the tips of her fingers, tears blurring her vision, and _God_ she couldn't remember a time when her eyes weren't wet with tears; couldn't remember a time when this sadness didn't weigh her down, sitting on her chest and threatening to take the very life from her should she let it.

It'd been selfish to love him, to assume this relationship. Her duties as a future queen should have come first, she should have been focusing on being who she was born to be, rather than living her life from moment to moment and dream to dream with this man. Now, she wished she'd spent her time focusing on just that; she wished nothing more than to reverse time and take it all back. If only so this man, this lovely man, could have been spared this fate. She would have given up every good memory, every pleasant sensation, if only she could will the life back into him.

She never knew, never fully realized the true cruelty of Cora until that fateful night that robbed her dear Daniel from her. The woman had been cruel and unforgiving for as long as she could remember, but _this?_ This had simply been too much. Snuffing out the life of another human being – she never could have imagined Cora was capable of such darkness. Obviously, she'd been so woefully wrong.

The woman had done it under the guise of doing what was best for her, just as with everything else she'd put Regina through in her young life. 16 years of lashings, of room confinements – 16 years of utter agony and she tried to make it all okay by simply telling Regina that it was what was best for her. And Regina, dear sweet Regina, who'd only ever wanted the love of her mother, had been willing to put all the pain aside and believe her when she said that. Now, though, now those words, that reasoning, rang so bitterly through her ears. How could this have possibly been what was best for her? How could taking the life of a man who'd dared to love a nothing and form it into something be what was _best?_

"I'm leaving..." She continued after many long minutes of utter silence, save for her uneven breaths and sobs that violently heaved from her body. She couldn't stay – not after all that had happened here. Before Daniel, she'd never dared to even dream of a life away from this place, had never even dared to dream of freedom, and leaving him now that he was buried six feet under the cold, unforgiving earth seemed impossible, but there'd been so much blood – too much. The air was putrid with its stench and she was sure, so sure that if she breathed in deep enough that she'd choke on it. There was but one choice, one path presented to her, and she would follow it – perhaps not proudly, perhaps not with her head held high, but she'd follow it all the same.

Her parents knew nothing of her plans – her father, her dear sweet father wouldn't try to stop her, but her mother, oh her mother was another story altogether. Regina was set to marry the King, she was now on the pathway from being nothing to becoming something – someone – great, and her mother wouldn't abide her departure. She wouldn't snuff the life out of her as she had done her dear sweet Daniel – not because she loved Regina, no, but because killing her would mean that she wouldn't have the power she so desperately craved – but she'd find some other punishment for her. Something cruel and unyielding. Something that would truly shatter what little remained of Regina's heart and soul.

"It won't be the same, not without you. But I cannot stay here. I cannot abide what she's done. I hope you understand." She chuckled then, humorlessly. How ridiculous was it that she was talking to a corpse? And even more than that, asking him to understand her decision? Daniel couldn't understand anything, not anymore. He was long gone. The stories that she'd read as a child, the stories that spoke of spirits and a life beyond this one would have told her to believe that her beloved could hear her in someway, and she so desperately wanted to believe in all of that; to immerse herself in the beautiful lie those stories weaved. The time for fantasies, however, was long since past. It'd died when Daniel's body had thundered to the ground, lifeless. Now was the time for her to focus on being something better than she was. It was the time for fire, and for strength.

Strength, she nearly scoffed at the thought, the word mocking her. The strong faced their circumstances head on, they didn't run away with their tail between their legs. Yet, that was just what she was doing. However, she reasoned, she'd spent her 16 years being so strong – one had to be strong to survive her mother – and she was weary, oh so weary. Didn't she deserve a moment of weakness? She would find her way back to strength, but as it stood, she simply needed to get away from this foul prison that was getting more stifling as the moments passed.

If she thought her life with her mother a prison, imagine what her life with the King, saddled with a child barely younger than herself, would be? She wanted to retch at the thought – oh, but ladies didn't do that. No, her mother had made sure she never entertained such an ugly bodily function. When Regina was young, no more than 11, her mother had forced her to the dinner table in spite of her protests that she was feeling ill. Unable to hold it back, Regina had spilled all the contents of her stomach right there on the dinner table, damaging the fine silk of the table linen as well as the beautiful lace of her dress. Cora had left lashes on her ill daughter's back that night, and left her sitting in the vomit-stewed dress for days behind the door of her chambers, ensuring that the young Regina would never forget that would-be Queens simply did not partake in such acts. So, she swallowed the gag and pushed the urge to the darkest corners of her mind, willing her stomach to hold its contents where they belonged.

"I don't plan on returning, Daniel." She whispered, laying her hand gently on top of the gravestone, a deep line between her eyebrows, "For that, and for so many things, I'm sorry, my love." She held a great deal of guilt in the pit of her stomach for many things, most of them unreasonable in the most obvious of ways that she simply couldn't see. Guilt plagued her for being unable to save Daniel, for lacking the strength to stay in this land, for continuing to survive while he was in the ground, and finally for loving him at all. It was that guilt that hit the hardest, that threatened to tear her apart and shatter what little remained of her heart. She didn't regret loving him; no, that was an impossibility, but she felt guilty for it all the same. After all, her love was what had sealed his fate, and if she'd never opened her heart to him, he wouldn't be lying stone cold and so very, very still.

Daniel had never known the cruelty of her mother – not really. He was aware that she was hard, but that was the extent of it. He never quite understood why she quivered in fear whenever Cora came near or why she yearned to take her leave of her. She'd hid that aspect of her life from him – it was something she was deeply ashamed of, and as such she had always gone to great lengths to hide it from all who knew her. If he'd known who she'd come from, he may have done the wise thing and turned away from her, and for that she couldn't possibly have blamed him.

There were so many things she'd never gotten the chance to say to Daniel, but denying him the facts about her family was certainly first and foremost on the list of things she wished she'd said. Not to gain sympathy or pity, no, but rather to show him just what he was getting into. She owed him that, and she failed him miserably.

God, maybe, just maybe she was as toxic as her mother had said. If she couldn't even be completely open with the man she loved so dearly, maybe there was something truly wrong with her. Openness and honesty were the pillars of a good relationship, and yet when she'd been with Daniel, she'd found the idea of complete honesty to be nauseating. She was so very fearful of the way he'd look at her if he knew who she came from – no longer with respect and love, but with pity. Or worse, disgust. Regardless of her fears, he deserved to know what he was getting himself into with her, and the fact that she denied him that made her self hatred surge painfully within her chest.

That self hatred seemed ever present these days, far more than it used to be in her days with Daniel. Regina had of course always held some modicum of self hatred – her mother had programmed her that way. Self hatred at not being enough for her mother to love, self hatred at not being true future Queen material, self hatred for so much more than she could even name. Now she carried new self hatred, for Daniel lying 6 feet under while she still drew breath. Even now, even while she watched her mother crush his heart, she couldn't find it within herself to direct the hatred towards Cora, where it belonged. So, instead, she directed it inwards; it would act as both part of her armor and part of her eternal punishment, cutting at her like a knife over and over again.

Silence hung in the air for a time between Regina and the gravestone – it wasn't the easy, comfortable silence she shared with Daniel in his life, nor was it the massively uncomfortable silences shared at the dinner table with her parents; no, this silence was...bleak. Shrouded in self-hatred, guilt, and pain. She parted her lips to speak, but no words would come from them. She had nothing left to say, nothing she could say that would make up for this terrible disservice she did him. And as she realized this, the clouds opened up and rain began to fall from the darkened night sky. She nearly laughed as the torrent of rain began to soak her long, dark hair. Rain used to be refreshing for her, being bathed in it used to feel like rebirth. Now, though, the drops felt like shards of glass as they fell on her skin, cutting away her spirit.

She tilted her face up towards the sky, closing her eyes and allowing the water to coat her face, a hint of a smile on her features as she felt the sting of the rain cutting away at her. Perhaps this was a new type of rebirth – a true rebirth, one that required pain to truly come to fruition. That thought was something she could survive with, and it truly couldn't have come at a better time. She would stand, reborn and free, for herself and for Daniel. She'd live the life of freedom he'd always wanted for her, be the person he'd always seen her to be. The thought made her chest swell in fear and uncertainty, but she would soldier on regardless.

"Goodbye, my love." And with a kiss to the top of the gravestone, she slowly departed, allowing the rain to continue to cut away all shreds of the person she'd been.


End file.
